Fiscal Cliff and Funding Cuts: Overview

Congress and the President are in negotiations NOW about what programs to cut and what taxes to adjust.

A fair budget and a reduced deficit are important-

but those goals should be met withoutmaking dramatic cuts to child care, Head Start, education, nutrition programs, or other basic needs of low- and moderate- income children and families.

There are three components to the current budget negotiations:

Sequestration: Unless Congress and the White House take another path, starting January 2, 2013, there would be automatic cuts of roughly 8% to domestic discretionary programs– including Head Start, child care, K-12 education, WIC, early intervention and many others. This would mean roughly 100,000 children losing Early Head Start or Head Start and 80,000 children losing child care assistance. Find out how big these cuts would be to your state here.

Revenues and tax spending: Another element is the debate about revenues and tax spending: who should continue to get the tax cuts and who should fairly be asked to contribute more? The top earners (those making more than $250,000 a year) have seen the greatest benefit from the tax cuts made in 2001 and 2003. If the 2001/2003 tax changes ended for those making over $250,000, the Treasury would raise another $1 trillion over the decade; this could help reduce the deficit and allow for more spending for critical programs.

Entitlements: Yet another part of the debate is what to do about entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

So What Should You Do NOW?

There’s a better way to reduce the deficit and to get the country back on a strong economic path

rather than making cuts to human services for low- and moderate- income families and children.

Go to our Fiscal Cliff: Take Action page to email your members of Congress. You only need your zip code. We provide sample messages for you to send directly to your members of Congress.

After you send your email, sign up for NAEYC’s free Children’s Champions updates and alerts. These alerts tell you when to contact your members of Congress and offer you a sample message. Go to NAEYC's main Public Policy page here and click "Children's Champions E-Mail List" to join now!